


the beginning of an era

by mayor_crumblepot



Series: fiveleska tumblr fills [1]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Courtship, Flirting, M/M, clueless kids, jerome gives his brother terrible relationship advice on purpose because what else are brothers for?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 21:23:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14902271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayor_crumblepot/pseuds/mayor_crumblepot
Summary: "Would you be open to making a fanfiction about 514A/either of the valeska twinsJeremiah Valeska?"





	the beginning of an era

As much animosity as there could be between them, Bruce and Five have taken a liking to each other. Something about having the same face creates a bond between people; and Bruce’s desperation to see the good in everyone leaves him with Five as the closest thing to a sibling he’s ever had. 

It isn’t awful— Five adopts plenty of routines that Bruce himself has, makes a solid attempt to be just as remarkably put together as Bruce is. There’s just something a little off about him. 

His hair never goes quite the right way. Five always looks like he styled his hair with shaking hands, a messy head of waves that he has to hold out of his eyes. Even with help from Bruce, he can’t quite get the impeccable fashion sense down, instead opting for things that swallow him up and make him feel safe. Above it all, he’s strange. 

Not rude, not scary, not cruel— just strange. He mumbles to himself, he looks through people on occasion, and everything he writes in his notebooks is accompanied by strangely harsh doodles and designs, little schematics that make less sense than he seems to think they do. 

People don’t like Five that much. It doesn’t bother him, not as much as he figures it should, but he can’t help but try and figure out ways to make himself more palatable. 

He can get a haircut, he can dress nicely, he can keep his mouth pressed shut; these things will last for a week, at most, but it doesn’t change anything. Five is conceded to his comfortable invisibility, and the most he can figure is that  _it could be worse_. 

He could be Jonathan Crane. Now  _that’s_ a nightmare. 

No matter how often Bruce invites Five to eat lunch with him, he politely declines. Eating around other people feels like a death sentence, to him, and he’s always got something he could be working on. Instead, he spends his lunchtime in the library, secretly nursing a bag of crackers as he travels from aisle to aisle. 

Normally, the library is empty during lunch, except for a handful of people trying to finish assignments before their next class. Rarely ever do any of them venture into the bookshelves, instead hovering near the computers at the entrance— Five always feels alone. That is, until another hand tries to take the book he’s reaching for. 

The first thing Five thinks about is if this is going to be a  _fight or flight_  situation. Unlike some of the other students, he hasn’t been in too many fights, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t prepared. 

“Sorry,” and it sounds mostly sincere, so Five lets the muscles in his arms loosen up just a little, “what a coincidence.” 

“Coincidence,” when Five looks up at the other person, he’s met with a version of a face that he knows. How strange. Is this is how people feel when they look at him? Do they really just see his face as a butchered version of Bruce’s? That’s so sad. 

The both of them are still holding the book, a collection of poetry that Five can’t even remember why he wanted in the first place. “If you need it,” the boy, Jeremiah, if Five remembers properly (which is a toss up as it is), says, “I don’t really—”

“No,” Five immediately drops his hand, takes two steps back, and turns around.  He walks straight out of the library, down the stairs, and into the smallest bathroom on campus. That’s where he hides, until the bell rings and he walks to class with his head down. 

* * *

The next time Five sees Jeremiah, the boy is fighting with his brother. Maybe the proper word is  _scrapping,_ because whatever it is they’re doing, barely anyone is all that concerned about it. 

Jerome has his arm wrapped around Jeremiah’s neck, loosely holding him in a headlock, talking on and on. Five has come in too late to truly understand what’s being talked about, and with Jerome, it’s truly imperative to have been around since the beginning of a tirade. He watches as Jeremiah tilts his head back, then bites down harshly on the soft part of Jerome’s arm. When he pulls away, he has blood on his lips and Jerome is yelling, then laughing. Of course. 

By the time the two of them separate, neither of them seems very angry. 

When Jeremiah passes Five in the hallway, just afterward, there’s still blood on his mouth when he smiles. It feels like he’s been thrown off the edge of the cliff, like he’s stuck in a constant free fall, and Five knows exactly where this is going.

What a terrible development. 

* * *

“Are you trying to get close to Bruce by talking to me?” Five is in the library again, sitting at one of the tables in the back, papers and library books spread out in front of him, disorganized. At the opposite side of the table, Jeremiah stands there, notebook held closely against his chest. “Because it’s not going to work. That’s not how it works.” 

“I imagine the best way to get close to Bruce would be by talking to him,” Jeremiah is reserved, and Five can’t help but realize that he isn’t quite as talkative as his brother— it’s a shame, his voice is so much less obnoxious, “which would explain why I’m not talking to him. Because I’m  _not_  trying to get close to him.” He puts his notebook down on the table, and Five can’t help but marvel at the fact that the thing is pristine. Perfectly clean, no dents or bends, no scribbled down notes on the cover— he feels like a mess in comparison.

“Then what are you trying to do?” 

“Get to know you,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious thing, “would you rather I didn’t?” 

On instinct, Five almost says yes. He almost tosses a book from the tabletop at the perfect center of Jeremiah’s face, at the place where his glasses sit on his nose. “People don’t usually do that,” he admits, pushing a few things out of the way so that Jeremiah can sit down, “that’s all.” 

“It’s fine,” Jeremiah drops his backpack on the floor, leans heavily on the table to see what Five is doing, “what’s that you’re working on?”

* * *

It becomes a routine, Jeremiah meeting Five in the library during lunch to go over whatever he’s working on. Five is as imaginative as they come, but he lacks a confidence in his own mind, lacks the ability to commit to a single concept long enough to find out if it will actually work. Alternatively, Jeremiah is committed to a fault. If something isn’t working, it isn’t his fault, but rather the item itself— it’s a can of worms Five doesn’t really care to open. 

And then, one day, Jeremiah is late. Not only is Jeremiah late, but when he  _does_  show up, his nose is dripping blood onto the floor and his eye is swollen. It’s obvious he’s tried to rub a stain out of his shirt in the bathroom, leaving the neckline rumpled; what bothers Five the most is how his stomach flips at the sight, how it keeps him rooted to the chair, lest he seem over eager to help. 

“What’s all that about?” Five gestures vaguely at Jeremiah’s face, following a drop of blood as it drips from Jeremiah’s chin, down into the carpet beneath his feet. 

“Sharing my brother’s face comes with consequences,” he says cryptically, grabbing an entire box of tissues from the librarian’s empty desk before making himself comfortable at their usual table, “they apologized, though. Doesn’t exactly  _fix_  anything, but—”

“Why do you refer to your face as your brother’s?” 

“What?” 

“’Sharing my brother’s face,’” it takes some effort, but Five closes all of his books and sets them aside, “Why do you say it like that?” The question seems to surprise Jeremiah, and faintly, he wonders if he’s been assuming Five to be a bit less intelligent than he really is. 

“Jerome uses his looks as a tool. Because of that, people identify him very heavily  _by_  his looks,” Jeremiah smooths his hair back, unaware that it’s been irreparably dislodged, “and that’s fine. He’s made a use of our face— it’s his, more than it is mine.” 

“That seems like a very lonely way to think about it.” At this point, Five doesn’t try to make it seem like he isn’t staring— he watches as the swelling in Jeremiah’s eye seems to take on life, take on a pulsing and beating as time passes. It looks terrible. 

“Don’t you feel the same way about Bruce?” 

“We’re not twins,” he waves his hand passively, “it’s not the same. Nobody mistakes us unless we want them to. At worst, he’s Bruce, and I’m Not-Bruce.” 

“I’d say that sounds very lonely, as well,” Jeremiah dabs another tissue at his nose, eventually giving up and tilting his head back. All Five can do is shrug at him, feeling a little bit exposed. The two of them sit in silence, Five staring as Jeremiah attempts to not choke on the blood going down his throat, until it finally trickles to a stop. He gives his nose another harsh rub with a tissue, “How does it look? Is there any blood left?” 

“Oh, lots. It looks great.” 

* * *

In a surprising development to the both of them, it’s Five who initiates something. On the side of the building, as Five waits for his bus, he listens as Jeremiah goes on and on about something he’s trying to build. It’s hard for him to follow, most of the time, considering how often he finds himself spacing out, but he does try his hardest. Even Jeremiah can see that, and he’s willing to repeat himself— something he’s very rarely seen doing. 

“There’s got to be an issue with the wiring between the fan and the motor, but every time I look at it, everything  _seems_  right, and I don’t want to dismantle it because it looks so good right now, and I just—” Five pulls Jeremiah down by the arm and plants a kiss on his cheek. Immediately, he disengages and heads toward his bus as it idles in the pickup lane.

“You’ll figure it out. You’re smart.” 

And of course, Jeremiah can’t even be bothered to  _think_  about the fan and motor and wiring, because he’s too busy trying to figure out why Five would kiss him. He writes flow charts, he tries to create premises and build arguments, all of it eludes him. 

When he asks Jerome, something he knows is a mistake from the moment he steps foot in his brother’s room, all Jerome does is laugh. “Man, you’re fucking stupid,” he says, not getting up from the strange position he’s taken up on his bed, “either he’s into you or he’s making fun of you. Hopefully, he’s making fun of you.” Jeremiah throws a pillow at Jerome before leaving his room, shutting the door harshly behind him. From behind the door, Jerome yells, “Are you guys gonna fuck? That’s so gross! You’d better not!” All Jerome has done is make things  _harder_  to understand— and he has the audacity to call Jeremiah stupid. As if. 

The last thing Jeremiah wants to do is show that he’s confused, though, so when he goes into school the next day, he’s as confident as ever. He’s even wearing a tie; the one that Jerome absolutely can’t stand. Jeremiah goes right up to Five at his locker, stares him down as if the extended attention is going to give him every answer he wants. It doesn’t, of course.

“Hi,” Five says, amidst his effort to declutter his locker just enough to fit his books inside of it, “why are you staring at me?” 

“Why did you kiss me?” Jeremiah thinks he’s won something when Five goes still, arms suspended in the landfill that is his locker. 

“Does it bother you that much?”

“It bothers me that I don’t know  _why_.” 

“I like you,” he says flatly, and then, a smirk threatens at the edges of his mouth, “would you rather I didn’t?” 

Jeremiah wants to come up with something witty to say, something clever and reflective of his massive intellect— instead he leans down and kisses Five. When he tries to straighten up, Five pulls him back down by his tie, and Jeremiah feels like his heart might come out of his chest. 

From somewhere down the hallway, Jerome shuts his locker harshly. “Get a room,” he says, loudly, and Jeremiah is so busy that he doesn’t even notice. 

**Author's Note:**

> fiveleska is a fucking ship now even if i have to steer this bitch my own goddamn self
> 
> i have a lot of feelings about it, and i have a whole world of ideas about how i want to characterize five as i get more comfortable with him but like. i would die for him. that is all, for now. 
> 
> talk to me on tumblr! i'm [ mayor-crumblepot ](https://mayor-crumblepot.tumblr.com)


End file.
